Focused on figures: Jessica Rice's figurative artwork transcends the diverse locales she's lived in

Art Business News, Dec, 2003 by Jenny Sherman

In 1998, the G. Ray Hawkins Gallery in Santa Monica, Calif., hosted an exhibit displaying the photography of Dr. Frank L. Lambrecht, a scientist who worked in the Belgian Congo. From 1945 to 1949, while researching tropical diseases as a health officer for the Congo Red Cross, Lambrecht found time to capture vivid scenes of daily life with the Mabudu and Mangbetu people. His black-and-white photos, depicting ceremonies, customs and fashions, were assembled into an archival body of work, a portion of which was hung at the gallery as a testament to the doctor's achievements as an artist.

But his wasn't the only work on display. His daughter, Jessica Rice, herself an accomplished artist, complemented her father's photos with her semi-abstract oil paintings. The show, "Jessica Rice and Dr. Frank L. Lambrecht: A Father/Daughter Exhibition," was, for Rice, a poignant reflection of how the artistic influences in her life had traveled full-circle.

"I come from a family of artists," said Rice from her home in West Hollywood, Calif. "Both my grandfathers were artists. My father is a wonderful artist--he did quite a bit of watercolor and photography." Her brother is a surreal artist as well.

Rice owes at least part of her success as an artist to genetics; a good deal more issues from the encouragement she got from her family to hone her talent from a young age. "They could tell I wasn't very good at school, so they encouraged me [to do art] a lot," she said. "They gave me a box of paints and canvas. I was constantly drawing, from the age of five"

Of course, it also helps that Rice had the inspiration of exotic surroundings: the African bush. Born in 1941 in Antwerp, Belgium, Rice left for the Belgian Congo with her family in 1945. "We went on lots of safaris with my dad," she recalled. "We saw quite a bit of central Africa--the brush and savanna and forests. My sister and I used to accompany him. I always brought my canvas with me."

While she and her father sketched together on her outings, Rice never focused on the animals. Her favored subjects were instead villages, markets and children playing games. Even today, despite the diverse locales she's lived in, worked in and traveled to, her focus as an artist has remained on the human form.

Her family left Africa for hilly San Francisco in 1959. Continuing their support of her blossoming artistic skills, they urged her to enroll at the Academy of Art College of San Francisco. She not only graduated at the top of her class, but was also awarded the prestigious Flax Scholarship.

Her next stop was New York, where she lived for six months and started a career in commercial art. She continued on that track back in San Francisco, working on advertising layouts, fashion illustrations, graphic design and all manner of freelancing, until 1972. After spending half a year in England, she settled in Los Angeles with her husband, Tom Brooks, and into a full-time career as an artist.

"In San Francisco, I was painting on the side and on weekends," she said. "When we came to L.A., my painting was very illustrative, with flowers, birds--I did do a lot of birds. It was very decorative. My husband said, 'Why don't you do something wild?' So I did"

Twenty-five years ago, Rice veered away from the illustrative style she had been entrenched in and dove into an avant-garde, Cubist technique. Since then, her style has softened from the hard edges of Cubism into a more realistic and rounded look. Her figures now show off curves as well as angles, and include touches of Impressionism as they pose, row boats and toddle babies across sandy beaches. She paints these scenes exclusively with a palette knife.

When Rice contemplates her current approach, she is somewhat surprised to see a hint of the Belgian masters she admires. "Belgian art of the '20s, '30s and '40s--that's what I like to look at," she said. "It's very curious that I paint like them." Other influences include Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Juan Gris and Stanley Spencer.

What isn't evident in her images are overt influences of setting or ethnicity--which is surprising considering where she's from, where she grew up and where she now lives. Rice spends six months of the year painting at her second home in Mazatlan, Mexico, but doesn't paint Mexican scenes. "When I go to Mexico, it seems like my colors are a little brighter" she admitted. "But I don't want to paint ethnicity in my painting. They have such wonderful artists in Mexico ... I don't want to compete with that."

Instead, Rice has remained focused on painting figures as she sees them. She commonly depicts family gatherings, people sitting around a table in a restaurant, folks frolicking at the beach, children playing and people traveling; groups supersede the individual. "It seems like I always have at least four people doing things together," Rice said. Why? "It fills the canvas!"

Over the years, Rice has cultivated representation at a few galleries, including the Muriel Karasik Gallery in New York and Kathleen Avery Fine Art of Palo Alto, Calif., which will be hosting "Recent Works by Jessica Rice" from Dec. 6, 2003, through Jan. 12, 2004.